Month: January 2025

Millions of us head on to the open seas every year for a holiday on a cruise, with many treating it as a once in a lifetime experience, while others will go on no other kind of vacation.

With thousands of people on a ship at any one time, there has to be lots to do to keep people entertained. After all, you’re paying customers who have likely spent thousands and thousands for your cabin, drinks packages, and other luxury add-ons.

But according to Lucy Southerton, who has worked for the likes of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Voyages cruise line as well as Royal Caribbean and P&O Cruises, there is one luxury additional purchase you should avoid if you want to avoid some potentially awful side effects. And after spending a decade of her life on the open seas, the Birmingham native knows a thing or two about what you should and should not do.

Speaking in a recent video to her Cruising as Crew YouTube channel, Lucy explained why you shouldn’t spend your hard earned money on this purchase ‘at all costs’.

For Lucy, who spent two years working in spas on cruise ships, the big red flag came down to specific treatments in the spa facilities offered across many cruise lines.

In particular, she has said it is a massive no when it comes to getting Botox and filler at sea.

“There’s probably going to be a lot of you watching who didn’t even know that getting Botox and filler on a cruise ship was even an option,” Lucy says.

Why you should avoid Botox and filler on a cruise ship?

“There’s a few reasons for this,” Lucy explains.

“The first reason. Although Botox and filler is actually a routine procedure for some people there is still a lot that can go wrong. And I’m not talking about just a botched lip job or a botched Botox job.

“I’m talking about things like necrosis and you do not want to have something like that when you are at sea.”

Necrosis is a very real and rare side effect of having a Botox injection. This is where the cells in your body prematurely die due to a lack of blood flow; it cannot be reversed.

As well as the above terrifying outcome, Lucy highlighted what actually happens after you get a Botox procedure. She said: “When you have a Botox and filler treatment, usually two weeks after you’ll go back and have a review where they will make sure that the Botox is sitting the way it’s supposed to sit or the filler is sitting the way it’s supposed to sit. Because again, if you have these treatments you’ll know that it does take a few days for it to get into place.

Lucy Sotherton worked on cruise ships for almost 10 years (Instagram/@cruisingascrew)

“Now this is fine if you’re on a month long cruise but if you’re going on a four or five-day cruise that means your review isn’t going to happen now. The therapist will book you in for a review before you leave the cruise ship but if you’re on a four day cruise and you have Botox done or filler done on the second day, you have to have your review a few days later which means that the filler or Botox might not be like in place yet.

“And once you’re off the ship it’s very difficult to get hold of the person who administered your Botox and filler which means if there is a problem with it sucks to be you.”

It’s a no for waxing and haircuts too (Instagram / @cruisingascrew)

Others to avoid

As well as Botox and filler, Lucy said you should not get your hair cut on a cruise ship.

“While I have worked with some truly fantastic hairdressers in my time I have also seen people walk out of the salon with orange hair and they didn’t want orange hair,” she said.

“I have seen bowl cuts, I’ve seen incredibly awful layering. I’ve seen some true disasters when it comes to haircuts.”

On top of this, waxing is another red flag for Lucy.

“It’s not that I’m saying don’t get waxed on board if you really want it or need it, I’m just saying don’t have high expectations. She probably hasn’t done a waxing treatment in a few months so it might be a little bit more painful than usual, and she might not get every single hair.”

In 2013 Australian woman Emma Carey was skydiving in the Swiss Alps with her best friend Jemma, who was very nervous about the prospect of plummeting out of a plane before parachuting to the ground.

Emma had been ‘loving’ the experience until the time came for her parachute to be pulled, with her instructor tapping her on the shoulder to prepare for a jolt as her sudden fall to the ground was slowed.

Only there was no jolt, and Emma could see her instructor was unconscious because of the parachute cords while their parachute itself was in ‘bunched up bundles’, according to ESPN.

Stuck in the nightmare scenario of hurtling towards the ground and her parachute not opening properly, two thoughts went through Emma’s mind.

Her first thought as she plummeted towards the ground and her parachute wouldn’t open was the utterly understandable thought that she did not want to die, that despite all the odds of her surviving her current situation being against her she wanted to survive it.

The second thought was the sad knowledge that if she did die from the fall, then her best friend Jemma would be the one who found her body.

Emma then hit the ground, having remained conscious throughout the entire ordeal, but incredibly neither she nor her instructor died, with them still unconscious and strapped to her.

She had broken her sternum, pelvis and vertebrae and crushed her spinal cord.

While there was pain everywhere and she could not move her legs, the then 20-year-old was able to shout for help.

Jemma had landed about half a mile away and ran towards her friend, waiting with Emma for around an hour for help to arrive.

Jemma had the unenviable task of calling Emma’s family in Australia to tell them she had been critically injured while skydiving and was in hospital.

Emma’s mum and sister travelled to Switzerland to be by her side. Her skydiving instructor had been taken to the same hospital and while she did feel mad at them and the whole situation at times she decided forgiveness was the right thing to do, particularly after she woke up in her hospital bed one day to find them by her bedside in a wheelchair.

The leading theory as to what went wrong is that the instructor forgot his altimeter, misjudged their altitude and pulled the regular chute at the exact same time as the emergency chute, resulting in the two becoming tangled.

Emma ended up writing a book titled The Girl who Fell from the Sky and has spoken about her experience several times.

The experts on the show have seen all sorts of items over the years but sometimes they come across a piece of history that deeply affects them. Take a look:

It’s rare for the experts not to give a value to an item, but there are times it has happened.

Many people brought in old keepsakes and objects from that time, including pictures of a meeting between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain in 1938, and Bill Harriman was clearly affected when a guest brought on a series of letters which told a sad story.

One of the letters was sent to the parents of a young child called Audrey, who in 1940 had been sent to Canada by ship in an attempt to keep her away from the Nazi bombings.

Sadly, the letter was to tell Audrey’s parents that the ship taking their daughter across the Atlantic had been hit by a torpedo and sunk.

The letter, dated 19 September, 1940, read: “Dear Mr Mansfield, I am very distressed to inform you that in spite of all of the precautions taken by the ship carrying your child to Canada was torpedoed on Tuesday night September 17th.

“I am afraid your child was not amongst those reported as rescued.”

The expert then became emotional as he read a letter from Audrey to her parents written while she had still been in England.

The letter was from a child named Audrey who was killed soon after writing it. (BBC)

It read: “Dear mummy and daddy, I am somewhere in England and having a good time.

“We have lovely playing fields with all sorts of things. Give my love to Nanny and Panky, don’t worry. Love from Audrey.

“P.S. I have made some friends.”

The letter ended with a series of kisses from the child who would soon afterwards be killed during attempts to evacuate her to Canada.

That made the expert tear up as he dabbed his eyes and called the message ‘truly, truly heart-wrenching’ knowing the details of Audrey’s life and its end far too soon.

Payton Leutner was stabbed 19 times in 2014, by her classmates Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier. All three of the girls were aged 12 at the time.

Geyser and Weier later told police they had stabbed Payton to ‘prove themselves worthy’ of the fictional Slender Man, claiming that they feared their families would be harmed if they didn’t do it.

Geyser pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and was sent to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, Wisconsin, with a 40-year sentence.

Meanwhile, Weier also pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted second-degree intentional homicide. She was sent to the same institute and was given a 25-year sentence. However, Weier was released just a few years later, in 2021, on the condition that she wore a GPS monitor.

Following her horrific ordeal, Payton has spoken about what happened on the day in 2014, explaining she believed she was playing hide and seek with the girls after they had had a sleepover for Geyser’s birthday the night before.

At the age of 12, Morgan Geyser stabbed a classmate 19 times (Waukesha Police Department)

“I shouldn’t be alive after what happened,” Payton told ABC’s Nightline.

“They just wanted to go on a walk. And I didn’t think much of it. It’s just a walk. It’s in Waukesha. What bad stuff happens in Waukesha, Wisconsin?

“Anissa told me to lie on the ground and cover myself in sticks and leaves and stuff to hide, in a sense. But it was really just a trick to get me down there.”

Geyser stabbed Payton 19 times before the girls left, telling her they were going to get help.

“I got up, grabbed a couple trees for support, I think,” said Payton.

“And then just walked until I hit a patch of grass where I could lay down.

“I couldn’t focus much because my body was working so hard to keep itself alive. It was probably like, ‘Vision isn’t really a priority right now.'”

Moments later and a cyclist came across Payton, who was covered in blood.

The 12-year-old was rushed to hospital, with the surgeon explaining that if the wound to her chest had been ‘the width of a human hair’ deeper, she would not have survived.

Meanwhile, Geyser and Weier had walked for five hours before they were stopped on the side of a road by authorities.

Geyser and Weier said they carried out the stabbing to appease Slender Man (Getty Stock Photo)

It has now been reported that Geyser will also be released from hospital, following a number of failed petitions over the last few years.

The first two petitions were withdrawn, meanwhile a third – submitted in April 2024 – was denied due to Geyser still being considered a threat to the public.

However, Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren has now approved Geyser’s release from the hospital after finding the 22-year-old to no longer be a risk.

Bohren has ordered the state’s Department of Health Services to make plans within 60 days to house Geyser in a group home where they can be supervised.

He said Geyser had since grown up and must exist as part of society if there is to be rehabilitation.

On 5 November, 1983, four divers and one crew member were on board the Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible oil rig regularly used in the North Sea.

The group of divers – who would regularly carry out construction work on oil rigs – were tasked with drilling 20,000 feet into the earth’s crust.

This is the equivalent of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa at 19,000 feet.

Tragically, catastrophic decompression killed all five people instantly because the diving bell was improperly opened while still under pressure, causing a violent release of air.

The extreme pressure change led to fatal injuries and the tragic deaths of the divers.

A diving instructor who runs the Waterline Stories YouTube channel has since warned people who are researching the tragedy.

“Accidents happen when systems break down and there are few systems as complex and dangerous as saturation diving on a deep sea gas drilling rig,” he said.

The diving instructor issued a warning (YouTube/Waterline Stories)

“Now, when you go and take a look on the internet to find information about the Byford Dolphin accident, you’re going to come across some horrific images.

“So please be careful when you start to take a look for this accident. And be aware that what you come across is going to shock you.”

Another YouTube channel called Storified previously shared a horrifying simulation video of the incident.

“The diving bell disconnected before the chamber doors fully closed, releasing an explosive depressurisation,” the video explains.

“The air pressure inside the bell instantly shifted from nine atmospheres – the pressure experienced while 297 feet below the water – to one atmosphere, the average air pressure on the surface.

“The fate of the four divers inside was far worse. Lucas, Coward and Bergersen’s blood ‘boiled’ instantly in their bodies as enormous amounts of dissolved nitrogen suddenly returned to their gaseous state. The divers died instantly.

“Hellevik suffered the worst death since he was closest to the connecting door. The pressure equalisation caused the door to chamber one to partially jam, causing Hellevik’s body to be forced through a small 24-inch crescent-shaped opening with a tremendous force of 25 tons.

“The sheer pressure resulted in the horrific outcome of his internal organs bursting through his body through the opening.”